Dual Core Gaming Fix Guide

Never seen anything like that happen with any of my X2's (4400 & 4200). It really sounds game & video driver specific to me. Maybe resolution / monitor specific? Did this occur in when ALT-TABing out of that game with the exact same video drivers as before?

Who else has this game and could shed some insight? :confused:
 
The video issue only came up after switching to the 4400+ processor. I was using the ATi 6.9 drivers and CCC for the video card when it started. I updated the drivers to 6.10 with CCC hoping this might be the issue - not the case unfortunately. Perhaps disabling Cool N' Quiet?
 
I never saw that while Alt-tabbing out of games. Might just be because of the video settings in City of Heros/Villains.
 
This also seems to happen when pressing the Windows menu key or CTRL+ALT+DEL. Disabling Cool N Quiet did not seem to have any effect? Is this possibly an issue dealt with by the Microsoft Hotfix?
 
PKZero said:
This also seems to happen when pressing the Windows menu key or CTRL+ALT+DEL. Disabling Cool N Quiet did not seem to have any effect? Is this possibly an issue dealt with by the Microsoft Hotfix?
Click to expand...

I doubt it. It sounds like a video card driver issue to me personally, but I don't know for sure. Why are you Alt-tabbing anyway? To set affinity?
 
I have had this issue with the 6.9 and 6.10 drivers from ATi. I sometimes ALT+TAB out of the game to move people around teamspeak or to look something up while remaining in-game. Wondering if the processor is having issues trying to swap the processes back and forth between the cores?
 
Just wondering if these fixes help with C2D systems. I have currently an e6400 and it will not work with Command and Conquer as well as Starcraft.

Any help would be awesome!
 
After implementing fixes 1 and 3, my already installed Neverwinter Nights 2 runs so slow that you'd think I'm running it on a tandy. It worked perfect before :(

Everything is slow. Scrolling, frames, menus, selector highlights, etc.,

I used the fixes for warcraft 3, but now nwn2 is messed...any ideas???
 
Quagmire02 said:
After implementing fixes 1 and 3, my already installed Neverwinter Nights 2 runs so slow that you'd think I'm running it on a tandy. It worked perfect before :(

Everything is slow. Scrolling, frames, menus, selector highlights, etc.,

I used the fixes for warcraft 3, but now nwn2 is messed...any ideas???
Click to expand...

I would try uninstalling either #1 or #3 and seeing if that speeds anything up. Usually I recomment installing one at a time to see if that fixes or creates any problems.
 
Quagmire02 said:
After implementing fixes 1 and 3, my already installed Neverwinter Nights 2 runs so slow that you'd think I'm running it on a tandy. It worked perfect before :(

Everything is slow. Scrolling, frames, menus, selector highlights, etc.,

I used the fixes for warcraft 3, but now nwn2 is messed...any ideas???
Click to expand...

Warcraft3 only needs fix #1, so I would try uninstalling #2.
 
The Legend said:
Anyone have any info. Anything at all would be most helpful!
Click to expand...

Let me try installing Starcraft and see what I can come up with (I just have to find it somewhere in my piles of old CD's :) ).
 
kirbyrj said:
Let me try installing Starcraft and see what I can come up with (I just have to find it somewhere in my piles of old CD's :) ).
Click to expand...

Awesome thanks mate. At least this way I can rule out a few things.
 
Ok...I can't even get Starcraft to load. All it does is give me an error/crash message as soon as I try and start it. Not sure what the deal is there, but is that what you were talking about?

It installed fine, but even with the latest patch, it won't go into the game.
 
Right. It gets the the load screen as far as selecting options and then crashes.

Not quite sure what the problem is as we both have different hardware minus board and cpu. The problem may lie within the board?
 
No, my problem is different. I can't even get in the game period. I try hit the menu button and the game crashes. I'm going to try it on my other dual core computer (P-D 805) and see what happens...probably tomorrow though.

I also tried running in a compatibility mode for Win98, but when I try that, it tells me that the CD is not in the drive when clearly it is :(.
 
If you have your northbridge voltage raised at all or your memory settings manual, set them to auto and by spd respectively. This solved my problem and let me load the game. After the game has run once, you can go back and use manual timings. Best of luck.
 
The Legend said:
If you have your northbridge voltage raised at all or your memory settings manual, set them to auto and by spd respectively. This solved my problem and let me load the game. After the game has run once, you can go back and use manual timings. Best of luck.
Click to expand...

Wow...I would have never have thought that would do anything, but I'll give it a try. Thanks.
 
i'm having all sorts of issues but then again i'm probably trying too many things at once. here's the history of my rig :p

- initially had venice 3000+ @ 2.6, 7800gt and otherwsie same as sig. Games were all fairly good in 1920x1200 but i could only ever have lower details, and most importantly Gothic3 was sluggish and jerked frequently (cpu was 100% all game)
- i then upgraded cpu to opteron 170. i didn't reinstall xp, i just shut machine down, swapped chips, powered back on. I even left my overclocking config (oops) but it booted fine @ 2.6 so all was okay. XP detected extra core, then after reboot device manager shows uni processor. gothic3 was slightly smoother, cpu didn't rail 100% anymore but still gpu sluggish (i expected that anyway) and still had the jerks (this is a big issue on the jowood forums)
- next came the 8800gts. uninstalled my curent gpu drivers, installed card, installed 96.89 beta's i found online, card was okay for while so i clocked it up to where it is now ;) gothic3 was smooth as silk most of the time except it still had the jerks and now had some curious new bugs like day/night cycle flashing past in seconds in some areas of the game.. i looked up forum and apparently the amd dual core optimizer fixes it... this is how i came to be down the shanky dual core driver path :|
- first up installed the amd dual core optimizier.. i thought about using the driver on the same page but it read as tho it was only for cool n quiet so i didnt install it.. im assuming this was my first mistake? machine got stuck in reboot cycle. after booting into safe mode and disabling start-up items i did some googling and found a fix from XS forums (thanks guys).. it was daemon tools and an old driver they use. i found an updated driver, reenabled startup items -> all okay or so i thought. 3dmark now ran like a dog.. so did gothic and any other game. both cores now rail 100% yet the speed of the game (even the UI before i actually load the game area) is slow. 3dmark05 fps seem about 1/4 of what they used to be. I tried uninstalling optimizer but the problem persists

:( :(

so from reading this forum i assume i need to:

- at a minimum try installing the actual dual-core driver + optimizer
- re-install XP (amd forums say needs reinstall if upgrading to dual core) and go through the steps outlined at the start of this thread, or the XS one here
 
yanman said:
i'm having all sorts of issues but then again i'm probably trying too many things at once. here's the history of my rig :p

- initially had venice 3000+ @ 2.6, 7800gt and otherwsie same as sig. Games were all fairly good in 1920x1200 but i could only ever have lower details, and most importantly Gothic3 was sluggish and jerked frequently (cpu was 100% all game)
- i then upgraded cpu to opteron 170. i didn't reinstall xp, i just shut machine down, swapped chips, powered back on. I even left my overclocking config (oops) but it booted fine @ 2.6 so all was okay. XP detected extra core, then after reboot device manager shows uni processor. gothic3 was slightly smoother, cpu didn't rail 100% anymore but still gpu sluggish (i expected that anyway) and still had the jerks (this is a big issue on the jowood forums)
- next came the 8800gts. uninstalled my curent gpu drivers, installed card, installed 96.89 beta's i found online, card was okay for while so i clocked it up to where it is now ;) gothic3 was smooth as silk most of the time except it still had the jerks and now had some curious new bugs like day/night cycle flashing past in seconds in some areas of the game.. i looked up forum and apparently the amd dual core optimizer fixes it... this is how i came to be down the shanky dual core driver path :|
- first up installed the amd dual core optimizier.. i thought about using the driver on the same page but it read as tho it was only for cool n quiet so i didnt install it.. im assuming this was my first mistake? machine got stuck in reboot cycle. after booting into safe mode and disabling start-up items i did some googling and found a fix from XS forums (thanks guys).. it was daemon tools and an old driver they use. i found an updated driver, reenabled startup items -> all okay or so i thought. 3dmark now ran like a dog.. so did gothic and any other game. both cores now rail 100% yet the speed of the game (even the UI before i actually load the game area) is slow. 3dmark05 fps seem about 1/4 of what they used to be. I tried uninstalling optimizer but the problem persists

:( :(

so from reading this forum i assume i need to:

- at a minimum try installing the actual dual-core driver + optimizer
- re-install XP (amd forums say needs reinstall if upgrading to dual core) and go through the steps outlined at the start of this thread, or the XS one here
Click to expand...

Personally, I would try reinstalling XP first and see what you get.
 
i can feel the need to reinstall xp now, but last night i couldn't be assed so i just tried the new 97.02 WHQL drivers that i noticed nvidia had relesaed on their site. it fixed the slow gpu issue! wtf.. so i'm back to gothic3 being jerky.. maybe it was the previous nvidia drivers + 8800 + dual core not playing nice together? i'll try the drivers + dual-core optimizer again tonight
 
The Legend said:
If you have your northbridge voltage raised at all or your memory settings manual, set them to auto and by spd respectively. This solved my problem and let me load the game. After the game has run once, you can go back and use manual timings. Best of luck.
Click to expand...

Ok...I played around with Starcraft. It seems to work fine on my brother's opteron 165 system. It plays fine on my other brother's E6300 system, and it plays fine on my "other" P-D 805 system. The only one it doesn't work on is my system (see sig). I have a feeling this has to do with Crossfire though and not dual core.
 
yanman said:
i can feel the need to reinstall xp now, but last night i couldn't be assed so i just tried the new 97.02 WHQL drivers that i noticed nvidia had relesaed on their site. it fixed the slow gpu issue! wtf.. so i'm back to gothic3 being jerky.. maybe it was the previous nvidia drivers + 8800 + dual core not playing nice together? i'll try the drivers + dual-core optimizer again tonight
Click to expand...

Yeah, I just read over in the Video card section that there were some issues with the 8800's slowing down over time. If you reinstalled the drivers (using driver cleaner and the whole works) then they worked fine...go figure.
 
An updated AMD Dual-Core Optimizer has just been released. No release notes though. Anybody want to be first to try?
 
ok I've heard AMD Dual-Core Optimizer 1.1 improving some FPS in games ... but does it fix any stuttering issues ? Anyone ... Bueller ? Anyone ?
 
MrkXCeL said:
ok I've heard AMD Dual-Core Optimizer 1.1 improving some FPS in games ... but does it fix any stuttering issues ? Anyone ... Bueller ? Anyone ?
Click to expand...

I don't know...but I'd also be interested in seeing if anyone has any firsthand experience with it.
 
nobody brave enough to test :) ?

I have no issues with my current games and I have only AMD drivers installed. Well maybe in neverwintern nights 2 when from time to time camera goes all whacky. But not sure if this is becasue dual core CPU.
 
Anyone else get the problem where the AMD Optimizer causes their system to crash?
 
Mega2 said:
sure and I had to uninstall it. I email amd about it too.
Click to expand...

Did the same thing, made sure it was disabled in msconfig and uninstalled.
 
optimizer freezes the sataI

I'm using sataI raid0 as main now, but I notice my sata I frozed when I had my pata as main.
 
I'm using the new optimizer without problems. Of course, I have to lead with the disclaimer that I had no problems with the older one either.

I also upgraded my video drivers recently so I can't deffinitively say if the FPS increase I'm noticing is from the optimizer, video drivers or a combo of the two.

Remember when testing, only one change at a time, or it's impossible to state what change net'd what result. :confused:
 
Just dropped an Opteron 170 in my rig and all I did was reset the CMOS before I booted. Coming from a 3200+ and windows recognized new hardware the first boot, told me to restart, I restarted, and everythings good. Task manager and speed fan show both graphs and I just played some COD2 and no stuttering at all. Is this normal or should I still install the AMD optimizer?
 
Motocross said:
Just dropped an Opteron 170 in my rig and all I did was reset the CMOS before I booted. Coming from a 3200+ and windows recognized new hardware the first boot, told me to restart, I restarted, and everythings good. Task manager and speed fan show both graphs and I just played some COD2 and no stuttering at all. Is this normal or should I still install the AMD optimizer?
Click to expand...

Don't install anything until you have problems.

I wonder if your games installed prior to the switch are only running on 1 core. I had programs like that which only utilized 1 core until I reinstalled them again after moving to dual core. Then they utilized both cores properly.
 
Motocross said:
Will games utilizing both cores take up 100% of the cpu cycles? COD2 seems to be only using 1 core. Everything runs perfect though and I even installed the MS hotfix just to be sure.

edit: to clarify COD2 only takes up 50% of the cpu cycles.
Click to expand...

I don't know about 100%, but if you're taking up 50% and it's all on 1 core, then it's not even trying to use the other core.
 
Does disabling power management fix the problem? Seems like it would be the easiest fix. I always disable it, since it causes problems overclocking and never noticed an issue.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top